


Can I call you when I burnt toast and the house smells?

by 61feathers



Category: ARCO, The Maple Effect
Genre: Arco - Freeform, Brynn - Freeform, Cousins, June - Freeform, Other, The Maple Effect - Freeform, Valentine - Freeform, aaron - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-29
Updated: 2015-10-29
Packaged: 2018-04-28 19:52:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5103677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/61feathers/pseuds/61feathers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aaron driving his cousin to the Airport. Basically it <3</p>
            </blockquote>





	Can I call you when I burnt toast and the house smells?

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everyone!! hope you enjoy this little short as it was fun to write about my boys and their relationship together as cousins. Theyre really close, if you cant tell. Hehe. <3 
> 
> I also like this because it shows a small portion of how Arco feels towards Aaron's current girlfriend. *nodding. I think we all agree with his opinion too. 
> 
> I would LOVE to hear your guy's comments :D but it would be especially great if you could post them on the Smackjeeves page-- (i dont respond or check here very often)

“Explain to me exactly what you’re going to do when you get there.” He said, grinning from the driver’s seat of his favorite candy apple red car. 

Sunlight shone down through the tinted windows and turned his dark sea-foam green eyes into a stunning emerald on this particular Monday morning. A Monday morning in which I knew that things would be changing in my life for the better. I sat beside him, shaking my head slowly because he seemed even more excited about this than I was. He drove ten miles over the speed limit, passing cars in the fast lane and hopping back over to get off at the correct exit. I figured, if anything, he was a pretty damn good chauffeur. 

He was also a pretty damn good roommate and an even better cousin if I do say so myself. I couldn’t help but turn to look away—out my own window for a moment—because I was going to miss that sunshine grin more than I wanted to admit. I sighed, blinking at the passing concrete walls and the green treetops on the other side, and the sun that wasn’t always constant for this state. 

“I’m probably going to get lost in the airport.” I explained, fingering the air vent nervously. “Then I’m going to find the shuttle to take me out of the terminal… and then I’ll have to find my bus stop and hope that I make it on time.”

“Don’t be afraid to ask for directions.” He chided, smirking sidelong at me; knowing that I didn’t like to ask people things like that.

“I will if I need to.” I allowed, shifting my hand from the air vent to the radio. I turned the volume up a notch and found a song I wasn’t all the fond of. “Jeeze they can’t do anything without you can they?”

“Huh? Oh.” He jabbed the CD button and turned the radio off swiftly, looking grim. “Yah… they weren’t all that happy I was taking the morning off.”

“That’s because that girlfriend of yours wouldn’t know good music if it bit her in the ass.” I scoffed, thinking about the stubborn co-host to my cousin’s morning show. She was his girlfriend at the moment, but certainly no prize. She was ignorant, airy, selfish… everything that Aaron was not.

“Aaron.” I said before he could defend her taste in music. “Promise me you won’t let her push you around while I’m away.”

“She doesn’t push me aro—

“She does.” I insisted, turning the volume up and then back down again. If anything I was just nervous for him. He was a gentle man-- one that I was inevitably used to taking care of. One that I didn’t want to see fall apart while I wasn’t around to pick up the pieces. His girlfriend—as lovely as he thought she was—was just the kind of person that would take advantage of my absence. Of my not being there to tell Aaron when she was being unfair to him. I scowled, thinking yet again about what I would be leaving behind for the next five or so months.

“Let’s not talk about her.” Aaron suggested, trying not to look so grim. I turned the volume back up and listened this time, found it to be one of my favorite CD’s, and visibly relaxed.

“I’m gonna miss this.” I changed the subject swiftly. “I’m going to miss driving around listening to Nirvana with you.”

“Oh you’re so sentimental.” His voice was dripping with sarcasm as he changed lanes and followed the signs to the parking lot. The smile returned slowly, waking like the morning light. I was going to miss that too.

“I was being serious.” 

“You’re going to be so busy you won’t have time to miss me.” He insisted, adjusting the glasses on his nose and rolling his window down. I turned the music lower one last time as he pulled up next to a parking meter and reached for his wallet to pay the fee. “And no, I’ll pay don’t worry”

All thoughts for reaching for my own wallet were discarded and he hurried and paid the fee for the hour of parking that he wouldn’t need. It would only take a few minutes to drop off my baggage and even less to walk to the security gates. From there Aaron wouldn’t be able to follow me anyways. Butterflies ate away at my stomach at the thought.

We’d never been apart for more than a weekend before… let alone months.

“You know you can always go to mom if you need something?” I suggested. And by “mom” I meant MY mom, not his own. Aaron knew that so I didn’t clarify. His mother worked a lot and was out of state more often than she was home. That was part of the reason why when I graduated and Aaron was still in highschool it was an ideal situation to let him live with me in an apartment. He had someone to come home to, and I wasn’t paying rent completely on my own. That being said of course, neither of our families were even middle-class. We’d always had a good amount of income—his parents being business partners and my mother being a vet for large animals. My father invested a lot of money elsewhere, but had a day job at the community college teaching an environmental health class, and that was always extra money in our pocket. 

“Of course.” Aaron smiled, gliding into a parking lot and turning the engine off. He unclicked his belt and hurried out, still smiling.

“Stupid.” I huffed under my breath. “So excited to get rid of me.” 

Aaron popped the trunk and started pulling my luggage out before I even opened my car door. I stalled, feeling safe and maybe a little bit sorry for myself. Of course I wanted this internship more than anything, and of course I would never be having second thoughts about going. The problem was that I didn’t want to face this goodbye. Hopefully he wouldn’t cry. He tended to cry at things like this.

“Here, Arco.” He handed me the handle of my suitcase as I got out to meet him. I took it slowly, shutting the car door and checking my pockets to make sure I had my cell phone—that would be the worst thing to leave in this situation. I leaned back for a moment, looking up at the clear blue sky and the heat of the early spring sun landing on my face. I felt nervous.

“Arco.” Aaron paused, still holding the duffel bag that I would also be taking on the plane with me. “Are you okay?”

I didn’t want to have this moment with him inside the airport where a bunch of people would be watching, so I figured it would be best to have it now and keep the goodbye short and sweet once we got to the check-bag gates. I looked down at him, blinked once, and forced a smile.

“No.” I admitted, almost sarcastically. “What am I gonna do without you?”

He smiled sheepishly, looking far younger than I knew he actually was. “You’re going to make friends, and go on whale adventures, and work with animals like you always dreamed about.”

I sighed, shaking my head slightly oh though I was agreeing with him—I knew I would be fine once I got there. I just wished he was going to be there too.   
I hugged him then, dropping the handle of the suitcase and burying my chin against his shoulder and squeezing as hard as I could because no amount of awkward-public-stares could make me care anymore. I was going to miss him, I was going to worry about him, I was going to text and call him probably to the point of driving him crazy. But I needed this now. I needed him to see that this was hard for me. But that it was okay.

“Arco…” He tried to pull away once but I refused. “Stop it you’re so embarrassing.”

“You call me.” I insisted. “Call me when you’re upset and need to talk, call me and tell me if you feel like you’re anxious, call me to tell me how the morning show went. Call me. Okay?”

“Can I call you when I burn toast and the house smells?”

“Yeah, even then.” I laughed, let him go finally, and picked up the handle on my suitcase. He brushed himself off and scratched at his neck a little awkwardly. 

“I didn’t think you’d be the one… you know, to do that.”

“Yah well shut up.” I brought my hand up to my face and wiped away what was indeed—the watery start of tears in my eyes. 

“Big softie.” 

“Shut the fuck up, Aaron.” I shoved him, shook my head, and pulled myself together rather quickly. It would be fine. I told myself again and again. He would be fine. He’s twenty-one years old, he doesn’t need me to be there all the time. 

“Alright, alright.” He followed closely, carrying the duffel bag as we entered into the airport. “But you don’t have to worry okay? I’ll be fine.”

“I know.” I allowed. 

“You have Whale?”

“Of course.” 

“Then you’ll be fine too.”

A smile tugged at the corners of my mouth. I rolled my eyes are high as they could possibly go so that he could tell how silly I thought he was being. 

“I know.” I allowed, giving him one more nudge in the arm. “I know.”


End file.
